18 Pray in the Spirit at all times with all prayer and
supplication, and keep awake for this very purpose with all perseverance and
supplication for all the saints,

19 and also for me: pray that I may be given utterance as
I open my mouth, to make known the mystery of the gospel 81 with liberty of speech.

20 It is for the sake of the gospel that I am an
ambassador—an ambassador in chains! Pray that I may enjoy liberty in this
matter, 82 and speak as I ought.

18 This
paragraph is closely similar to its counterpart in Col. 4:2–5, but neither passage can be shown to be dependent
on the other. Both reflect a common situation, existing at the time and place
of writing.

There is no obvious separation in the Greek text between this
exhortation to prayer and the immediately preceding encouragement to resist
spiritual foes. 83 The
imperative “pray” (in our rendering above) renders the participle “praying” in
the Greek. 84
This might be a further instance of the imperatival use of the participle; 85 but, so far as the
construction goes, “praying” (with the following “keeping awake”) seems to
belong to the series of participles dependent on the imperative “stand” at the
beginning of v. 14 (“having girt,” “having shod,” “having
taken up”). 86

Praying “in the Spirit” means praying under the Spirit’s influence
and with his assistance. “I will pray with the spirit 87 and I will pray with
the mind also,” says Paul (1 Cor. 14:15), by way of
response, it appears, to some who believed that to pray in a “tongue”
unintelligible to speaker and hearers alike was to pray “in the Spirit.” It is
no criterion of the power of the Spirit that the person praying does not
understand his own prayer. On the other hand, there are prayers and aspirations
of the heart that cannot well be articulated; these can be offered in the
Spirit, who, as Paul says, “himself intercedes for us with sighs too deep for
words” (Rom. 8:26).

Both in his own practice and in that of his converts and others,
Paul insists on the necessity of constant prayer—praying “at every time” (as
the literal rendering is here). 88
“Pray without ceasing,” the Thessalonian Christians are exhorted (1
Thess. 5:17), while Paul himself repeatedly assures his readers of
his unremitting prayer for them (cf. Col. 1:3). Here the general
word for prayer is used, together with “supplication,” the word emphasizing the
element of petition or entreaty in prayer. 89

As in Col. 4:2, the importance of watchfulness,
keeping spiritually alert, is stressed. A different word for keeping awake is
used here 90
—the same word as appears in a similar exhortation in Luke
21:36, where Jesus, warning his disciples of the impending crisis,
urges them to “keep awake at all times, praying that you may prevail … to stand
before the Son of Man.” 91 The
eschatological note is not explicitly prominent in Colossians and Ephesians,
but it can be discerned wherever watchfulness and perseverance 92 are enjoined.

The readers have already been commended for their love “to all the
saints” (Eph. 1:15); one way of continuing to show this love is to
persevere in making supplication for them.

19 With the exhortation to pray “for all the saints” comes
a special request to pray for Paul in particular, in language closely akin to
that in Col. 4:3–4. If the life-setting of the letter
was Paul’s detention in Rome, where he looked forward to his appearance before
the supreme tribunal, then he might well ask for prayer as he tried to exploit
every opportunity for gospel witness in his present restricted situation, and
especially when the time came (as he hoped) to bear witness before Caesar
himself. 93
Much might depend on what Paul said on that occasion, and on the manner in
which he said it—not so much for his own safety (a matter of minor importance
in his eyes) as for the progress of the gospel in the Roman world. He had made
known in the eastern provinces the “mystery” 94 with which he had
been entrusted on the Damascus road; the impending opportunity of making it
known at the very heart of the imperial administration carried great
responsibility with it, wholeheartedly as he welcomed it. Hence he besought the
prayers of his fellow-Christians, that he might say the right thing in the
right way, 95 and
do so without inhibitions.

20 Twice in this prayer request he expresses the desire
that he may be granted liberty of speech as he makes the gospel known. 96 This liberty of
speech cannot be divorced from the inward liberty of spirit which enables one
to speak from the heart. His sense of liberty was the greater because he knew
that what he had to make known was not his own message but the Lord’s. He was
but the ambassador; Christ was the sovereign on whose behalf he was to speak.
He had no uncertainty about his commission: as he put it to Philemon, if he was
the prisoner of Christ Jesus, he was at the same time the ambassador of Christ
Jesus 97 —none the less
an ambassador even if he was, as he says here, “an ambassador in chains.” 98

If it is to the hearing of his appeal that 2
Tim. 4:17 looks back, then the answer to the prayer requested here
is recorded there: “the Lord stood by me and gave me strength to proclaim the
message fully, so that all the Gentiles might hear it.” “All the Gentiles”
could not be present in court while Paul made his defense, but this is an
instance of Paul’s “representative universalism”; 99 what was said in
public at the center of the empire would reverberate as far as the distant
frontiers.

FOOTNOTES

81τοῦ εὐαγγελίουom B F G latb m M. Vict Ambst.

82ἐν αὐτῷ, for which P46 B 1739 1881 read αὐτό.

83 Hence Bunyan’s Christian, beset
in the valley of the shadow of death by forces against which his other armor
was useless, “was forced to put up his sword, and betake himself to another
weapon, called ‘All-prayer’ ” (The Pilgrim’s Progress, Part 1).

87 Gk. προσεύξομαι
τῷ πνεύματι, where πνεῦμα is ambiguous: τὸ πνεῦμά
μου in the preceding verse might suggest Paul’s
own spirit, but his emphasis throughout the chapter is that such devotional
exercises are effective only if performed through the Spirit of God (cf. 1 Cor. 12:7–11).